Glen Cook Quotes page 3

“We are not really a godless bunch. We are just the sort who ignore the gods—probably in the unconscious hope that the gods will not notice us.”

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 83 (p. 298)

“Half of confidence is the appearance of confidence.”

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 104 (p. 652)

Glen Cook Dreams of Steel

Source: Dreams of Steel (1990), Chapter 17 (p. 287)

“Being an old cynic myself I have strong notions about the true value of human gratitude. It is a currency whose worth plunges by the hour.”

“Nobody knew what the Company wanted. Various witnesses assigned motives according to their own fears. Few came anywhere near the mark.”

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 95, “Fortress with No Name: Down Below” (p. 654)

Glen Cook book Shadows Linger

Source: Shadows Linger (1984), Chapter 33, “Juniper: The Encounter” (p. 368)

“Beneath my breath I continued my conversation with God. As usual, He did not trouble Himself to defend His Works to me. My fault for being a woman.”

“She did not seem offended, so I added my secret philosophy of life: any dork who became a soldier for an idea instead of the money deserved to die for his country. You’re going to put it all on the table, six up with some other guy, it damned well better be for stakes you can carry away.”

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 84 (p. 302)

““I still got all my limbs and I’m still breathing.”
“Makes you a winner in the soldiering game.””

Source: The Silver Spike (1989), Chapter 36 (p. 560)

“He had learned self-control in a hard school. He had been married for thirty years.”

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 78 (p. 550)

““It would take an entire nation a thousand years to build something this vast. No monument so huge can be a good thing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Only a very great evil could remain so single of purpose, so uncaring of cost, as to create something so ultimately useless.””

Source: The Silver Spike (1989), Chapter 26 (p. 528)

“It is a saying of my people. Even Water sleeps. But Enemy never rests.”

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 103 (p. 650)

“For once he was as serious as a spear through the gut.”

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 79 (p. 554)

Glen Cook book Bleak Seasons

Source: Bleak Seasons (1996), Chapter 66 (p. 187)

“Somebody a lot smarter than me once said, “Put no trust in wizards.””

“Not dangerous at all. Not even that lucky. But a sufficiently paranoid mind will discern patterns and threats where only fortune has conspired.”

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 78 (p. 550)

“And there went some good old-fashioned wishful thinking, Sleepy. We were talking about human beings. If there is any way to be contrary, unreasonable and obnoxious, human beings are sure to find and pursue it. With verve and enthusiasm at whatever might be the most inconvenient time.”

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 30 (p. 112)

““Used to be” is not worth the breeze on which it is scribbled.”

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 85 (p. 308)

“He had a distinct problem imagining minds working differently from his own.”

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 2, “An Abode of Ravens: When the Baobhas Sang” (p. 368)

“I reminded myself that Khang Phi is bereft of arms. That the monks abhor violence. That they always yield to strength, then seduce it with reason and wisdom.
Yes, sometimes it does take a while.”

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 12 (p. 314)

“Leadership tip: Sound confident even when you have no idea. Just do not make a habit of it. They will find you out.”

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 15, “The Land of Unknown Shadows: The Secret Masters” (p. 422)

“He is blind to the dead, to the burning villages, to the starving children. As is the Rebel. Two blind armies, able to see nothing but one another.”

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 87 (p. 313)

“He jumped down, started waving his arms around while he went to squeaking and squealing in one of those languages wizards use so the rest of us will think there is something terribly strange and mystical about what they do, kind of like lawyers.”

Source: The Black Company (1984), Chapter 3, “Raker” (p. 79)

“The soldiers stumbled forward doggedly, cursing the bite of the wind while reminding one another that generals are seldom of sound mind and unbesmirched ancestry. They would not be generals if they were.”

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 41 (p. 412)

“Slight gasp. “You grow too bold.”
Didn’t I? “I’m sorry. Thinking out loud. An unhealthy habit known to be the cause of bruises and major hemorrhaging.””

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 19 (p. 334)

“Consider little children. There are not many of them not cute and lovable and precious, sweet as whipped honey and butter. So where do all the wicked people come from?”

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 49, “The Invisible Maze” (p. 666)

“The staff came to enquire after my needs. They were revolting in their obsequiousness.
A disgusting little part of me gobbled it up. A part just big enough to show why some men lust after power. But not for me, thank you. I am too lazy. And I am, I fear, the unfortunate victim of a sense of responsibility. Put me in charge and I try to accomplish the ends to which the office was allegedly created. I guess I suffer from an impoverishment of the sociopathic spirit necessary to go big time.”

Source: The Black Company (1984), Chapter 4, “Whisper” (p. 115)

“Peace had broken out and was being enthusiastically exploited on the presumption that it could not possibly last.”

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 6, “Opal” (p. 34)

“Never underestimate the power of human ingratitude.”

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 59 (p. 206)

“Willow, if the gods thought half as much of you as you think of yourself, you’d be king of the world.”

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 30, “Taglios Aroused” (p. 156)

“I said, “I am a soldier, grown old and tired and confused. I have been fighting since before you were born. And I have yet to see anything gained.””

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 7, “Smoke and the Woman” (p. 39)

“I could not get my feelings straight. I did not believe in evil as an active force, only as a matter of viewpoint, yet I had seen enough to make me question my philosophy. If the Lady were not evil incarnate, then she was as close as made no difference.”

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 12, “The Plain of Fear” (p. 506)

“That was not an exaggeration, that was an outright fabrication.”

Source: The Black Company (1984), Chapter 6, “Lady” (p. 205)

“Public works which did not serve the rich and powerful had a way of dying of neglect.”

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 9 (p. 304)

“Raven muttered, “You don’t have to be brilliant to be a god.””

Source: The Silver Spike (1989), Chapter 66 (p. 646)

“I am not religious. I cannot conceive of gods who would give a damn about humanity’s frothy carryings-on. I mean, logically, beings of that order just wouldn’t. But maybe there is a force for greater good, created by our unconscious minds conjoined, that becomes an independent power greater than the sum of its parts. Maybe, being a mindthing, it is not time-bound. Maybe it can see everywhere and everywhen and move pawns so that what seems to be today’s victory becomes the cornerstone of tomorrow’s defeat.
Maybe weariness did things to my mind.”

Source: The Silver Spike (1989), Chapter 42 (p. 580)

“You can blame a wizard for anything and people will believe you.”

Source: The Black Company (1984), Chapter 6, “Lady” (p. 208)

Glen Cook book Bleak Seasons

Source: Bleak Seasons (1996), Chapter 77 (p. 212)

“Baladitya understands that in addition to being foreign territory the past is, as history, a hall of mirrors that reflect the needs of souls observing from the present. Absolute fact serves the hungers of only a few disconnected people. Symbol and faith serve the rest.”

“I won’t bore you with their dogma. It’s repulsive and I’m not sure it was related to me truthfully.”

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 12, “Glittering Stone: Steadfast Guardian” (p. 401)

Glen Cook Dreams of Steel

Source: Dreams of Steel (1990), Chapter 23 (p. 310)

“I guess you don’t need to agree on everything to be lovers.”

Glen Cook book Bleak Seasons

Source: Bleak Seasons (1996), Chapter 31 (p. 87)

“One’s own yesterday is a ghost that will not be laid. Death is the only exorcism.”

““They worship the goddess, Mistress. They think. But their heresies are revolting. They are worse than disbelief.”
Why was he incensed? A prolonged exchange failed to illuminate me. No godless person can comprehend those minute distinctions in doctrine that provide true believers excuse for mayhem. It is hard enough to accept the fact that they really believe the nonsense of their faiths. I always wonder if they are pulling my leg with a straight face.”

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 8, “The Barrowland” (p. 481)

Glen Cook Dreams of Steel

Source: Dreams of Steel (1990), Chapter 58 (pp. 414-415)

“You try your damnedest, but something always goes wrong. That’s life. If you’re smart, you plan for it.”

Glen Cook book Shadows Linger

Source: Shadows Linger (1984), Chapter 6, “Tally Mix-Up” (p. 232)

“You can’t get out of getting old. You can’t get out of having a relationship change.”

“I tend toward the cynical view where religion is concerned.”

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 10, “Bomanz’s Story” (p. 497)

“Shed swallowed. “That isn’t a plan that does much for my nerves.”
“Your nerves aren’t my problem, Shed. They’re yours. You lost them. Only you can find them again.””

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 52, “The Nether Taglian Territories: Lady Made Grumpy Noises” (p. 541)

Glen Cook book Shadows Linger

Source: Shadows Linger (1984), Chapter 15, “Juniper: Death of a Gangster” (p. 287)

“He had leaped into the embrace of self-delusion.
There was a lot of that going around.”

“No world lacks its villains so self-confident that they don’t believe they can get the best end of a bargain with the darkness.”

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 76, “The Taglian Territories: Another Origin Story” (p. 609)

“There are several huge monasteries—of which Khang Phi is the greatest—dedicated to the preservation of knowledge. The monks do not sort it into good and evil knowledge, nor do they make moral judgments. They take the position that no knowledge is evil until someone chooses to do evil with it.”

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 5, “An Abode of Ravens: Headquarters” (p. 382)

“I began to back away.
This is how I handle my women. Duck for cover when they get distressed.”

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 10, “An Abode of Ravens: Recovery” (p. 397)

“An adventure is somebody else slogging through the mud and snow while suffering from trench foot, ringworm, dysentery and starvation, being chased by people with their hearts set on murder or more. I have been there. I have done that, playing both parts. I do not recommend it. Be content with a nice farm or shop. Make lots of babies and bring them up to be good people.”

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 5, “Chains of Empire” (p. 31)

“I picked up my five cards from the next deal. “This ain’t a hand, it’s a foot.””

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 6, “An Abode of Ravens: Suvrin’s News” (p. 384)